Later in the afternoon on Sunday, I met up with another friend for tea and dessert at the Beard Papa. They specialize in chou à la crème…cream puffs! In Japanese, it’s pronounced “shoo cream,” which always puzzled me when I was growing up. (Shoe polish??)

Beard Papa has locations in Hawaii, California and New York (among others). I first visited the one New York a few years ago, upon the recommendation of a friend who grew up in Hawaii. I loved the green tea flavored one, so was hoping to have the same one in San Francisco…

Unfortunately, they weren’t offering that flavor on that Sunday, so I ended up getting the coffee flavor instead. I paired it with a piping hot cup of green tea. It was very light and creamy, not too sweet. ♥ I think it could be a little smaller, though I could fault my enormous brunch for my inability to finish my mid afternoon cream puff. =)

Mmm…lovely Sweet Green! Among the latest in food trucks to hit the streets of D.C., Sweet Green serves up some tasty frozen yogurt and salads, Tweeting their location as they go. They’ve recently started coming to Metro Center on Fridays, so I finally had a chance to try them out.
The yogurt came in a couple sizes, with three toppings included in the standard cup size for a total cost of $5. For toppings, there was a pretty good selection of fresh fruit, nuts, coconut shavings and mint. I got mine with baked apples, strawberries, and mint. (*____*) Soooo good. The yogurt was very fresh, and had a little tartness to it, but not too much. (I always found the popular froyo’s too sour for my taste). Loved it!

I still haven’t managed to set aside the block of time that will be necessary for my San Fran dinner post. m(_ _)m So here’s another quick post update, to bring you something that’s been popping up more and more in my area – and in all variations – the Twittering food trucks!

I think it all started with Fojol brothers, the Indian food vender who now comes by my neighborhood once a week with their tasty offerings. =9 Curbside Cupcakes launched a few weeks ago, and they too, work out of a truck and Twitter their location once they arrive.

So far, they’ve come by Metro Center a few times, and yesterday they were just outside my building! ♥ I had to try their holiday flavor, the chocolate peppermint (pictured above). Delicious! The frosting was not overly sweet, and didn’t taste too much of fake mint. Loved the crushed candy cane sprinkled on top.

First post in December! Can’t believe we’re already at the end of the year, but here we are. I’m not done with my San Francisco posts yet, but before I plow into the big dinner post, I’m taking a quick detour to post about homemade shabu shabu. Now, I’ve never actually been to a shabu shabu restaurant stateside, so I’m not really sure what’s done in those establishments. Personally, I think that unless you’re looking for particularly high grade places that have the sort of high end ingredients you would be unable to find at your local grocer, a homemade shabu shabu is the way to go! It’s easy to throw together, and it’s just the thing on a cold winter’s day. (Wouldn’t you want to stay inside on such a day?)

Basically, it’s a do-it-yourself meal, where you cook your food as you eat in a bubbling pot (a nabe). The water is usually lightly seasoned with kombu seaweed and maybe some hondashi – a bonito soup stock. It’s totally up to you which ingredients you want to cook. A shabu shabu usually involves some kind of meat – I usually like very thinly sliced beef. Non-meat versions usually center around tofu, and you’d call that a “yudofu.”

Aside from the beef, this particular shabu shabu (which I had a few days ago…yum!) also included sliced green onions, tofu, fresh shitake mushrooms, radish sprouts and lettuce. The lettuce is kind of an interesting addition…you usually wouldn’t think that boiled lettuce is very good, but it adds a nice flavor and does retain a little crunch. I usually like adding noodles to mine, like udon or harusame, but we didn’t have any on hand.